The primary reason why I choose Catholic school for our daughter was that she was not going to meet the public school age limit for Kindergarten. We were coming from Canada where the age limit for Kindergarten was 5 by December 31st and we were only moving to Philadelphia for a couple of years so when looking for places to live, I asked in a couple of Catholic schools to see if they would take her, and St Francis Xavier said they were happy to. This ultimately brought us to live in Fairmount! I think the Catholic schools have a little more flexibility than the public schools in that regard. Overall I was very happy with the Catholic school experience (specifically St Frannies) for the following